It’s nice to report a first Grand Slam title for a tennis woman who has tried so hard. Li Na beat Schiavone in two sets with a 7-0 tiebreak in the final set. I think that she is 29. She beat Sharapova and Azerenka on the way to the title. No mean feat!

Two perceptive $APPL observers (Brian Hall and JL Gassee) have perused Apple’s last quarter report and found this important fact:

In China the iPhone is +250% year-to-year (vs. +155% in the US).The number is especially interesting because this ought to be where iOS goes to die, snuffed out by a swarm of locally produced cheap handsets running Android or its mutant cousins Tapas and Ophone.

My own observation is that there is a class of Chinese consumers who have this thing for gadgets (iPhones and iPads) that seem to come from the US of A, even when they are “made in China”.

And what about the Android vs. iOS wars. Here is what Brian Hall reports:

Looks like iPhone was 65% of total smartphone ATT sales in Q1. (3.6m out of 5.5m).

They didn’t report total Android, but assuming Blackberry was 20%, Android was probably around 0.8m or 15%.

It looks like iPhone was 45% of total ATT phone sales for the quarter. It is unclear if that percentage is growing substantially or stabilized.

I post published photos of famous places. I saw this photo in a NY Review of Books article about the issues facing the Chinese Govt because of the Dalai Lama’s announced retirement from political affairs.

This is the first photo I have seen of this site with the Tibetan mountains in the background.

A Reuters news item discusses future use of the Varyag, a medium sized hand me down aircraft carrier now docked in Dalian harbor. This kind of “news” about China’s naval plans must be sourced out of some part of the US Defence industry. After all, this semi-hulk has been in Dalian harbor for several years and is seen easily from Dalian roadways.

A new missile attack ship and on the ground evidence of a Chinese stealth fighter seem to get more visibility than the poor old Varyag.

Since “news” is often the leading edge of propaganda, it makes me wonder what is really going on here, especially since the US Secretary of Defence announced sizable military budget cuts this week. Whose “news” is this stuff!

During the “Cold War” there was lots of “news” about the imminence of Soviet military domination. Now we are being treated to “news” about China’s newly developed military capabilities. Is this just the latest version of “let’s frighten them so we can get our way”?

Since the US is and has been since WW II, the global paragon of flaunting its military toys, can it be surprising to anybody that China is now doing the same thing? When will India turn up in these military equipment annals?

One thing that seems encouraging is that a respected Taiwanese military analyst seems calm about all this “news”, calm but circumspect:

But for one top Taiwanese security analyst, rumors of the runway test and China’s other upgrades have already achieved their key objective: to mess with U.S. war planners’ heads.

“It’s a very effective deterrent on the minds of strategic planners in Washington,” said Lin Chong-Pin, a former Taiwan defense official who teaches strategy at Tamkang University. “The Chinese don’t have to do anything in the future. Their announcement has already thrown a monkey wrench in strategic planning for U.S. action in and around the Taiwan Strait.”

I live and work in Northeast China – Dongbei. So I tend to pay more attention to the Korean context. Taiwan Strait seems much farther away. But that’s little comfort in this age of ship and aircraft borne missiles!

Here is an image that is clear evidence of the use of phallic symbols on outside walls of family homes in Bhutan:

Yes, the caption says that the phallic symbols “welcome visitors” to Bhutanese homes. Is it the Himalayan mountain air that affects them?

I wonder how phallus symbols fit with use of the left and right facing svastika in Eastern cultures. No doubt politically correct fanatics will deplore these “far out” symbols but those are Western values and in this global world all symbology should have equal visibility and cultural treatment. That is my humble opinion!